The END (Spoiler Alert - It's going to be ok.)

Isaiah 65: 17 – 25

Luke 21: 5 - 19

Sometimes studying scripture causes brain cramps.

So also does working on a sermon for 3.5 hours, and then losing it because of some bad file management.

Poof. Catastrophe. The end. The worst thing. Or so it seems.

This might be one of those weeks.

Earlier in the week I was in a swirl of hard news about the current state of our denomination. It seemed every email I received from anywhere other than Maryland was about how many fragments the church might split into.

I realize that not everyone is tuned in or concerned about the ongoing debate about what will happen to the United Methodist Church.  But I’m a delegate, elected as an alternate to represent our annual conference in legislative matters at General conference in 2020. And I spent last Saturday at a delegate meeting stewing in legislative proposals coming before the body.

Here’s the thing. I’m a cradle Methodist. I am descended from a line of Methodist pastors.  I have dedicated the last 10 years of my life to steeping in the stuff of John Wesley and so when the headlines are all about the end of the United Methodist Church I tend to hyperventilate.

But on Tuesday, after waking weighed down by all of this, I nestled into my study for prayer time, feet tucked warmly into the hand-me-down mohair throw I recently rescued from my mom’s basement.  I opened my favorite devotional.  The reading was from Luke 12: 29 – 31:

²⁹ And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying. ³⁰ For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them. ³¹ Instead, strive for his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.

These are the lines that follow observing the lilies of the field, how they neither toil nor spin and yet are as splendid as anything in Solomon’s temple.

And the reflection that went with it was by Reuben Job, a Methodist bishop that has gone on to glory, who was committed to love and justice and happened to also be an amazing writer.  His reflection for this way was this:

We can have peace, joy, assurance, comfort, hope, tranquility, confidence and companionship with our Creator, and beyond that, eternal life.  With a life bank full of such gifts, we are indeed rich.  And yet, so often I permit myself to slip into poverty thinking and poverty living.  I feel anxious, alone, faithless, fearful, without joy, and sometimes without hope. I feel this way because I have forgotten and lost grip on the inheritance that God give me anew each morning. 

(I cannot explain to you the irony of finding myself retyping that again after weeping over that lost sermon…)

Yes.  I was feeling anxious, fearful and without hope.  It was true.  And that reminder – instead, strive for his Kingdom, and these things will be given you as well” hit home. 

Laura, you’re worried about the wrong things. 

Our gospel text for today is a “little apocalypse,” one of those moments in scripture where there is some warning about the destruction to come.

There are those who focus on teachings like this – looking at them for clues about what they might mean for destruction in the days to come.  I suppose one could focus on Jesus’s warning about how the temple will be destroyed and how wars and natural disasters will rage.  It might even be tempting to read this text and think about how right Jesus was – of course the temple was destroyed.

But this is where the brain cramps show up for me.  You see…it’s important to remember that the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in about 70 CE.  The Roman empire came down hard and made sure the Temple was no longer standing.  Luke’s gospel was written somewhere between 85 and 100 CE.  Which means that the writer was writing about a moment with Jesus predicting that something was to come.  But in the time the writing was taking place, the something had already happened.  (See – there’s the brain cramp) The author lived through that destruction about which Jesus warns.

Brain cramp aside, it would be unfair to focus our efforts and attention on the prediction of hard things to come.

Let’s face it. Hard things, catastrophic things are a way of life.  They have happened throughout history – think of all of those dreadful battles and kingdom brawls in the Hebrew Scripture.  And they have happened in recent history – the Civil War, the Trail of Tears, the decimation of nearly an entire generation of men in parts of Europe during WW1, Hiroshima.  And natural disasters just keep showing up – Katrina, the Tsunami in Sri Lanka and then Japan, the wild fires in California.

Each of these is not a mark of the end of time.  And time is always coming to an end.

But there is something so vitally important in this text from Luke – as one commentary notes: “This text is not a road map to the end times but a survival guide to living through the days that precede the end…”

That road map has three important parts:

First – do not be terrified.  Do not be terrified… Bad things happen.  They always do.  In every age.  But they don’t have to cause you to fall off course.  They do not have to define you.  There’s a hymn for that:

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,

let this blest assurance control, that Christ has regarded my helpless estate,

and has shed his own blood for my soul.

It is well…it is well…it is well with my soul

Second – I will give you words.  This is your chance to TESTIFY to what God is doing in your life.  I realize that the idea of testifying is terrifying for some. If that’s true, return to number one – do not be terrified. But here’s the thing – Jesus says, “I will give you words.” And he says, do not prepare because I will give you words and wisdom.  You know what God is doing in your life.  In the moment, don’t worry about how it’s said. Just say it.

There’s a hymn for that, too:

Tell out, my soul, the greatness of the Lord!

Unnumbered blessings give my spirit voice;

tender to me the promise of God’s word;

in God my savior shall my heart rejoice.

Finally, Jesus promises Not a hair on your head will perish.  I mean…we know that this bodily life ends, right?  We’ve all experienced the void that comes when someone we love leaves this world.  Just before this verse – Jesus has indicated that some will lose their lives – they will put some to death and you will be hated because of me…  But earlier in Luke’s gospel, in fact earlier in chapter 12 from which I shared at the beginning – Jesus promises – “even the hairs of your head are all counted. Do not be afraid;”

Guess what – there’s a hymn for that (and we’re singing it in just a bit…)

In our end is our beginning; in our time, infinity.

in our doubt there is believing, in our life, eternity.

In our death, a resurrection; at the last, a victory,

unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.

And so this week I’ve been swimming in this advice.  And on good days, I look at all the upheaval and remember that good things happen and bad things happen and God goes on and on.

And I lean in to promises like the one in Isaiah 65

No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed.

They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.

They shall not labor in vain, or bear children for calamity; for they shall be offspring blessed by the LORD-- and their descendants as well.

Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear.

The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent--its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the LORD.

I started my week fretting about the future of the denomination of my birth. 

And my computer ate my sermon at 8:30 on Friday night.

Here’s what I know.

God is fully present. And God is doing a new thing.

The Holy Spirit is on the move.  What will come may not be something I fully understand or recognize.

I will not be terrified.

I know I will be given the words.

And not a hair on my head will perish.

I love the way the last verses are translated in The Message:

There’s no telling who will hate you because of me.  Even so, every detail of your body and soul—even the hairs of your head!—is in my care; nothing of you will be lost. Staying with it—that’s what is required. Stay with it to the end. You won’t be sorry; you’ll be saved.

And so I watch with breathless anticipation for what will become of the future of the church.

And my sermon was rewritten in 40 minutes.

The beat goes on.  There are political upheavals and wars and financial collapses. But the path Jesus forges is one of radical love for you and for me.

Do not be terrified.

I will give you words.

Not a hair on your head will perish.

As Paul wrote to the church at Rome:

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

May it be so.

Amen.

Sources: Feasting on the Gospels, Luke Vol 2: Luke 21: 9 - 19 Homiletical Perspective by Susan K. Olson; Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship, Year C, Volume 3 Proper 28 Commentary on Luke 21: 5 - 19; The United Methodist Hymnal: 377 It Is Well with My Soul, 200 Tell Out My Soul, 707 Hymn of Promise